Determinants of Female Age at Marriage in Rural Bangladesh: A Case Study in Tangail District

Abstract

Age at marriage is an essential factor that highly influences the fertility rate. This study aims to find out the factors that influence female age at marriage at the individual level as well as household level. Previous study revealed the determinants of female age at marriage in Bangladesh by considering female characteristics only and did not consider the characteristics of parents and households. Therefore, it is an important point to examine whether the parents’ and households’ socio-economic status influences the female age at marriage. The study collected 400 married females’ information from 10 villages of Tangail district by considering each village as a cluster. The study also collected 100 unmarried females’ information. To meet the objective, the study used both descriptive and inferential tools and techniques. To identify the determinants of female age at marriage cox’s proportional hazard model was used. The results show that the median age at marriage was 16.00 years when we considered all respondents, which is slightly higher than the median age at marriage for married (15.50) females only. The mean age at marriage was found to be 15.97 years for married women only. The cox’s proportional model results show that the father’s occupation and females’ education are the significant determinants of female age at marriage. The chance of getting early marriage decreases as the level of education increases. The respondents who are enjoying the status of NGO membership show a lower chance of early marring than those who are not involved with NGOs. One of the important findings of the study is that half of the marriages took place during their ages at or below 16 years, which violates the legal age at marriage. Females who was involved in a job or any other services have a higher median age at marriage compared to other female respondents.